Here’s a really good, interesting article on native Irish priests serving in the Tucson diocese:

Some 40 priests from the Carlow seminary came to Tucson. Another Carlow alum, Monsignor Thomas Cahalane, now 68 and pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows, came to Tucson in 1963; by then, another Irish American, Francis J. Green, had become bishop. Cahalane followed an older cousin, Father Cornelius Cahalane, "my light in the wilderness," who preceded him here by 13 years.

"Out of 28 in my seminary class in 1963," Cahalane says, "one-third came to the United States, one-third stayed in Ireland, one went to New Guinea and the others to England and Scotland."

Do go read – perhaps the experience of these priests is echoed in your own area. It certainly was in Florida, where the inside joke was the distinction between the priests who were FBI  or CIA …Foreign Born Irish or Conceived in America.

The piece is enriched by several good interviews with priests, retired and still active, in the diocese.